Denver International Airport

A bad opening

Denver International opened in February 1995, 16 months late and roughly $2 billion over budget, with an automated baggage system that shredded luggage in testing and was eventually abandoned. The tunnels dug for it stayed, and so did a large amount of unused underground space, which is the physical fact every later theory is built on.

What is on the walls

Leo Tanguma, a Chicano muralist working in a tradition that deals in social struggle, painted two large works for the terminal. One panel shows a soldier in a gas mask with a scimitar standing over a burning city and grieving mothers. Read as a sequence, the murals move from that panel to children of the world dismantling weapons, which is a conventional anti-war structure and an unconventional thing to hang in an airport.

The dedication capstone carries the square and compasses of the Freemasons and names the two Colorado lodges that funded it, which is what a Masonic dedication stone is for and what hundreds of American public buildings have. It also mentions the New World Airport Commission, an entity that does not appear to have existed beyond the fundraising effort.

Then there is the horse. Luis Jiménez's Mustang, 32 feet of blue fiberglass with glowing red eyes, was installed in 2008. Jiménez did not live to finish it: in June 2006 a section of the sculpture came loose in his New Mexico studio, severed an artery in his leg, and killed him. Denver calls it Blucifer.

The airport leaned in

Somewhere in the 2010s the airport stopped issuing denials and started selling the story. During the Great Hall renovation it wrapped the construction in barriers printed with its own conspiracy theories. "Apologies for the noise. It takes really big drills to get to the underworld." "Forgive the mess. Building secret underground tunnels can get quite untidy." The campaign ran under the tag DEN Files and was picked up worldwide.

For its 24th birthday in 2019, the airport put an animatronic talking gargoyle in the terminal to tease passing travelers about the conspiracy theories. The talking gargoyle is gone now. The permanent gargoyles are the two bronze figures of Terry Allen's Notre Denver, seated in suitcases above baggage claim. The murals came down for storage during construction, which generated a fresh round of theories on its own. In Peace and Harmony with Nature went back up in August 2026, and Children of the World Dream of Peace is due back when the Great Hall work is finished.

Apart from Mustang, everything here is inside a working airport, which means either flying through it or parking and walking to the public areas. The Notre Denver gargoyles sit landside in Jeppesen Terminal, before security, so a non-flying visitor can reach them. The two gargoyles perch in suitcases above Level 5 baggage claim, on the west side between Doors 506 and 508 and on the east side between Doors 507 and 509.

The dedication capstone is also in the main terminal, but the Great Hall reconstruction has changed passenger routes through the building, so the capstone may not be visible until the work is finished.

Of Leo Tanguma's two murals, In Peace and Harmony with Nature returned to Level 5, Northwest, near Door 504, in August 2026. Children of the World Dream of Peace is still in storage. DEN says it will return once the Great Hall construction is complete, which the airport expects at the end of 2027.

Mustang stands on the entry road and is easiest to see from a car on the way in or from the Peña Boulevard side. There is no pedestrian route out to it.

The airport runs occasional art and architecture tours, and the schedule is posted on its own site rather than through third parties. Allow more time than the drive suggests, because the terminal is a long way from the city and the walk between concourses is longer than it looks on the map.